Tag: Land Development

Crown Oaks
12/27/07 11:31am

The Leaky Lakes of Crown Oaks

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Environmental, Flooding, Hazards, Homeowners' Associations, Lakes, Land Development, Landscape, Master-Planned Communities, Montgomery County, Real Estate Marketing
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Lake at Crown Oaks, ConroeThe charms of gated acreage near Lake Conroe: large, wooded lakefront homesites, plus only a 25 minute commute . . . to The Woodlands! Oh, and if we’re talking about 1400-acre Crown Oaks in Montgomery County, lots of lawsuits, too!

Last year, the Crown Oaks Property Owners Association, along with individual homeowners, sued Affiliated Crown Development LTD, citing poor structure of the two manmade lakes in the development, located outside Montgomery.

But so much has happened since then: After new board members decided the developer would finally work with them to solve the lakes’ problems, the property owners association dropped its suit this fall. But now two groups of 10 individual homeowners have hired separate legal teams to continue their lawsuit against the developer. And in turn, the developer is now suing the engineering and construction firms it hired to build the dams on both lakes.

But there’s even more lawsuit fun:

“The POA tried to get out of the suit as a plaintiff, so my group has also sued them,” [homeowner attorney Kevin] Forsberg said. “The individuals were not satisfied. … Even though the POA started working with the developer in the hopes that the lakes would be fixed, nothing has actually been done.”

What’s it like to build your home on a lake that doesn’t bother to show up? Thanks to the amazing power of the internets, you can experience all the highs and lows of manmade-lakefront real-estate investing yourself — from the comfort of your own computer! Watch videos and read details of the whole dam story . . . after the jump!

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Development Strategy
12/06/07 2:35pm

Fifth Ward: New Urbanists Meet Old Toxic Waste

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Environmental, Fifth Ward, Hazards, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Proposed Developments, Toxic Sites
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Residences at Seventh at 5th, by DPZ

A reader who lives in the neighborhood points us to drawings and information from New Urbanist planners Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. about the firm’s designs for the former MDI Superfund site in the Fifth Ward. DPZ, of course, is most famous for the enormous small-town-sized stage-set the company designed for the 1998 Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, which became so popular that it was kept on and is now used as a Florida Panhandle resort named Seaside.

InTown Homes and Lovett Homes owner Frank Liu bought the MDI site — a former metal foundry and spent-catalyst “recycling” facility famously polluted with lead and several thousand chemistry sets’ worth of other toxic substances — from the EPA late last year, with promises that he’ll spend a couple of years and $6.7 million remediating the property before letting Houstonians live there. Still, 36+ acres of inner-loop land at $5 a square foot doesn’t sound like too bad a deal.

After the jump: a look at DPZ’s MDI plans, plus large grains of salt.

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Buying and Selling
11/19/07 11:52am

Metro Chief Very Excited About Sprawl

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Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Freeways and Toll Roads, Katy, Land Development, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Investing, Sprawl, Transportation
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Aerial View of Wolff Companies Projects Along I-10

Sure, Metro talks a lot about transportation in this city’s central districts. But a Houston Business Journal profile shows us Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman David Wolff is also enthusiastic about Houston’s westward spread:

Many developers are building various types of commercial properties west of Houston and beyond.

The city of Katy, with an estimated population of 205,000, sits square in the path of Houston’s westward growth pattern.

“The whole city is going that way,” Wolff says. “I think Katy is going to be the next Sugar Land.”

He recalls the creation of Park 10, and how much the area has grown over the last three decades.

Says Wolff: “It was just rice fields. That was really the edge of the world then.”

After the jump, the METRO Board Chairman’s exciting projects way out west, plus how to get folks in the “next Sugar Land” to build freeway on- and off-ramps for your developments!

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Land Development
10/04/07 12:34pm

Meanwhile, Way Way Way Outside the Loop . . .

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New Construction, Proposed Developments, Richmond, Senior Living, Sienna Plantation, Sprawl, Texas City
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Plan of Grandeur ParkHouston’s middle-age spread continues:

  • Just north of I-10 at the Grand Parkway, Kickerillo is starting a large residential development called Grandeur Park. It’ll be across the street from The Grand, Simon Property Group’s new mall. Homes there will cost 300 to 600 Grand.
  • Houston will soon stretch to Sealy:

    Silvestri Investments of Houston has purchased 1,375 acres just west of Firethorne, which is a mile south of Interstate 10 on FM 1463.

    The new owner will hold the land for future development.

    “With the historical trend of development in Houston, it was only a matter of time before someone purchased land in the next logical pattern of growth,” said Michael Carroll, president of Riverway Properties, who brokered the deal. The price was not disclosed.

  • Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Development Company has bought Sienna Plantation South. What we’ll get there: about 7,000 single-family homes on the 3,827-acre site. Included in that total: 300 acres for offices and retail, 100 acres for schools and churches, and 1,000 acres of parks and open space. No breakdown available on the acreage of cul de sacs, lakes, or driveways.
  • The fourth Del Webb retirement compound in Texas will be near Richmond, at Highway 59 and Thompson Rd. Fifteen hundred homes on 500 acres. You’ll need to be at least 55 years old to live there, and drive at least 55 to get there.
  • It’s tough building slabs in Texas City:

    After what developers described as a “minor slowdown,” the 574-home Grand Cay Harbour project in Texas City is back on track.

    Persistent rain during the summer was part of the problem. But project manager Norman Reed didn’t elaborate about what other factors led to a long stretch of inactivity at the development. The project is on 250 acres beside Galveston Bay at the end of the Texas City levee system.

    And don’t you worry about flooding after the construction’s done. This gated community will keep out the tides, too.

Plan of Grandeur Park: Kickerillo Companies

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